70/100 cm proof colour-accurate, tiered pricing from € 38,-

We are happy to supply your proof with the current UGRA/Fogra media wedge CMYK V3.0 with test report.

The UGRA/Fogra media wedge CMYK V3.0 is the worldwide control tool for colour-accurate test prints. According to the Media Standard for offset printing, a colour-accurate proof must have a media wedge whose colour values comply with the tolerances of ISO 12647-7. The colour fields of the current media wedge CMYK V3.0 provide increased sensitivity in the highlights and shadow areas compared to the previous version 2.X, which is still used by many other proof service providers.

For a proof to be colour-accurate and legally binding, it must be provided with a media wedge. However, since hardly any printing company or agency has the metrological capability to verify a media wedge on site, we offer to provide the media wedge directly with a test report. This test report certifies that the media wedge and thus the proof is within ISO tolerances and is colour-accurate and legally binding.  

Your proof options: 

• without media wedge
• one media wedge without test report per page (surcharge € 2.00 / page)
• one media wedge with test report per page (surcharge € 4.00 / page)
• one media wedge with test report per order (surcharge € 4.00 total)

You can order the media wedges per page directly with the respective proof format. To select a media wedge with test report per order, please select it as a separate item and add it to your shopping basket.

 

 

After you complete your order, you can upload one or more files for each item.
Each file can be up to 2 GB in size.

For example: You order 10 in DIN A3 format and 2 in DIN A2 format. After completing your order, you can upload a file with 10 pages in DIN A3 format for the proofs in DIN A3 format and two files with one page each in DIN A2 format for the two proofs in DIN A2 format. If we should make multiple copies, please let us know in the item notes.

https://shop.proof.de/admin/categories.php?cPath=1&pID=15&action=new_product#

The illustration shows what the upload area for an A4 proof looks like before uploading.

 

Now select your file to be proofed and upload it, or drag it into the upload window.

 

After uploading, you can check your proof data again, download it, delete it, or upload other data.

 

 

Now complete your order by clicking the "UPLOADS COMPLETE, FINALISE ORDER" button.

Your order can then no longer be edited by you. We receive the notification that we can now begin data checking and proofing.
 

Even after completing your order, you can view your order at any time, but you can no longer change it.

If your data has errors during data checking, we will reopen the order so you can delete the faulty data and upload new data. After that, please finalise your order again.

Your uploaded data will remain on our server for at least 1 year and can be accessed and downloaded by you during this time for verification purposes.

Shipping costs and delivery times

Packaging and shipping Germany:

Up to DIN A4+:	From DIN A3 onwards:
DHL parcel: € 4.70  UPS Express Saver: € 13.00 (delivery by end of business day) UPS Express before 12:00: € 15.00 UPS Express before 10:30: € 25.00 DHL / FedEX Express before 9:00: € 75.00 DHL Express with Saturday delivery: € 49.00	UPS parcel: € 9.00 UPS Express Saver: € 13.00 (delivery by end of business day) UPS Express before 12:00: € 15.00 UPS Express before 10:30: € 25.00 DHL / FedEX Express before 9:00: € 75.00 DHL Express with Saturday delivery: € 49.00
The standard delivery time for shipments within Germany is 1 to 4 working days*, in exceptional cases longer. Express shipments are usually delivered the next working day*. Orders with data receipt by 4 pm are dispatched the same working day*. Orders with data receipt after 4 pm are dispatched the following working day*. An express delivery before 9 am is not possible to all areas of Germany. Please enquire briefly before placing your order.
Packaging and shipping EU:
Up to DIN A4+:	From DIN A3 onwards:
DHL small parcel international: € 10.00 UPS Express Saver: € 35.00	UPS parcel: € 19.00 UPS Express Saver: € 45.00
The standard delivery time for shipments to the EU is 2 to 5 working days*, in exceptional cases longer. Express shipments to European business centres are usually delivered the next working day*, but can also have significantly longer delivery times.
Packaging and shipping, non-EU Europe and North America:
Up to DIN A4+:	From DIN A3 onwards:
DHL small parcel international: € 10.00 UPS Express: € 45.00	Parcel or small parcel DHL/UPS: € 25.00 UPS Express: € 55.00
The standard delivery time for shipments abroad is 2 to 5 working days*, sometimes also significantly longer. We have seen delivery times of 6 weeks to New York. Therefore, especially for shipments to the USA that should arrive quickly, please choose express shipping. Express shipments are delivered the next or second working day*, but sometimes only a few days later.
Packaging and shipping rest of world
Up to DIN A4+:	From DIN A3:
DHL small parcel international: € 10.00 UPS Express: € 55.00	Parcel or small parcel DHL/UPS: € 25.00 UPS Express: € 75.00
The standard delivery time for worldwide shipments is up to 15 working days*, in exceptional cases longer and several weeks. We ship here by Post Priority registered mail or DHL small parcel international. Therefore, especially for shipments that should arrive quickly, please choose express shipping. Express shipments are usually delivered within four working days*, in exceptional cases also longer. Island locations and remote regions in the destination countries can significantly delay delivery.
The shipping zones are regulated differently by Deutsche Post, DHL and sometimes vary. To determine your exact price, please log in and add the required items to your shopping basket. After entering the delivery address, the shop will display the individual shipping options and calculate the shipping costs correctly.  In individual cases, we reserve the right to recalculate potentially significantly higher shipping costs. This can apply to bulky and large shipments such as roll-ups or very large proofs, but also sometimes to orders to more remote regions or specific business centres: For example Croatia: an express shipment to a Croatian island costs four times as much as a shipment to Zagreb. We must therefore in some cases charge higher shipping costs retrospectively than displayed in the shop, as we can only consider the country but not the region during shipping cost calculation. However, we will always inform you of any additional costs before dispatch.  If you have any questions, please call us. *Working day = Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays in Germany and Baden-Württemberg. Please note the regulation in the different federal states (Wikipedia). No dispatch and no delivery on public holidays.
Country assignment for shipping by post or DHL / UPS standard You can find the country assignments for shipping listed in detail here.

Go to proof prices

 

Customers usually send us PDF data. We accept PDF, EPS, TIF and JPEG files for proofing. 

Black and white, CMYK or also files with PANTONE and HKS spot colours. Optimal for proofing are PDF files in PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3 or PDF/X-4 format.

PDF/X-1a (widely used outside Europe) and PDF/X-3 are traditionally the PDF files optimised for printing. These ISO standards ensure, for example, that fonts and images are embedded. They are recognised and requested by most print shops as a standard for the exchange of print data. 

PDF/X-4 is the new printing standard for PDF files. Unlike PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4 files can contain transparencies. PDF/X-3 was also a media-neutral standard, but 99% of all X-3 files contain only CMYK colours and spot colours. PDF/X-4 is still rarely used, but increasingly requested by printers, as X-4 data allows separation to be placed as late as possible in the process chain. The standard offers many advantages, but also risks. 

proof GmbH is the only company in Germany certified by PDFX-ready for proof output of PDF/X-4 data and has been a member of PDFX-ready for several years.

If you want to find out exactly about the advantages and disadvantages of the respective formats, we recommend the PDFX-ready websites. Here you will find all information, guides for PDF creation and Acrobat creation and Acrobat test profiles for PDF/X-4 files. 

PDFX-ready guide for PDF/X creation
PDF preflight checks for Adobe Acrobat
Creator workflow for sheet-fed offset, web offset and newspaper printing

In all common layout programmes, all three PDF/X standards can be selected and created during export. 

How we handle your colour data

For us, a proof is absolute colour accuracy. It is therefore important that you know exactly how we handle colours in your supplied files in proofs in detail. 

CMYK colours

With CMYK colours, the rule is simple: All CMYK colours contained in your proofs are reproduced with their exact colour values in your requested output colour space. 

Example: You supply a PDF in ISOCoated (Fogra27) and order a proof in ISOCoatedV2 (Fogra39). A colour value of CMYK 100/70/0/0 in your PDF file will be output with its exact colour values 100/70/0/0 in your requested colour space ISOCoatedV2. No conversion from ISOCoated to ISOCoatedV2 takes place. This also applies to CMYK TIFFs or JPEGs.

RGB colours

If your PDF files contain RGB colours, we first check whether your PDFs comply with either the PDF/X-3 or PDF/X-4 standard and whether your RGB images are correctly marked with colour profiles and rendering intents. If this is the case, we check whether your PDFs also have the correct output colour space. If this is also the case, we proof your PDFs taking the input profiles into account, thus converting all your RGB data directly during proofing according to your specifications from RGB to CMYK. If your images are in Device-RGB, you will receive a "Data incorrect" email from us with a note, as we cannot reliably interpret your RGB data in this case. If your images are correctly marked but your output colour space does not match the requested proof output colour space, you will also receive a "Data incorrect" email.

Example: You supply a PDF/X-4 file with sRGB and AdobeRGB images with the output profile PSOCoatedV3 and order a proof in PSOCoatedV3: We proof your data and correctly take into account all your RGB colour spaces and rendering intents. However, if your file has ISOCoatedV2 as an output profile, we trigger a "Data incorrect" email because we would now have to "overwrite" your output colour space stored in the PDF, which would require colour transformations that you cannot clearly understand.

If you do not send us PDFs but pure TIFFs or JPEGs in RGB profiles, we will trigger a "Data incorrect" email. If we should output your TIFFs or JPEGs in RGB profiles such as "sRGB" or "AdobeRGB" in these colour spaces, or for example output them in relative colorimetric mode in your requested output colour space, please write to us in the "Notes to your order" field that you will find during the order process. 

For photo prints in RGB colour spaces, we recommend our fineart prints, which are perfectly suited for this. Pure RGB output is not really intended for proofs. 

Spot colours

We can simulate all spot colours very well - whether PANTONE, HKS, Toyo or individual, custom spot colours. The only exception: Metallic colours and neon colours.

If your file contains spot colours such as PANTONE and HKS colours, our proofing software recognises these colours by their colour names. As long as your spot colours are correctly named like "PANTONE 123 C" or "HKS 15 N", we use the digital colour reference data stored with us from the PANTONE and HKS master standards and apply your spot colours to the proof.

If you use a PANTONE "U" colour for "Uncoated" uncoated paper in a proof for glossy printing standards such as ISOCoatedV2, we will trigger a "Data incorrect" email. We can also simulate PANTONE "U" colours on a proof for glossy paper, but an offset printer could not print it because glossy printing on glossy paper will always result in PANTONE C colour. The same applies to HKS K or PANTONE C colours on proofs for uncoated papers such as PSOUncoatedV3: We would also send you a "Data incorrect" email here, as we often cannot achieve coated colour on our uncoated papers for proofs either. Some examples:

proof: ISOCoated V2 | Colours: PANTONE C / HKS K | Result: Perfect for proofing and offset printing
proof: ISOCoated V2 | Colours: PANTONE U / HKS N | Result: Difficult, as it can be proofed but not offset printed
proof: PSOUncoated V3 | Colours: PANTONE U / HKS N | Result: Perfect for proofing and offset printing
proof: PSOUncoated V3 | Colours: PANTONE C / HKS K | Result: Difficult, as it is usually not proofable and not offset printable

When proofing spot colours, you should also note: With spot colours, only the respective full tone, i.e. the 100% spot colour area, is stored in our proofing system. A 50% area of PANTONE 123 C or HKS 15 N would therefore be calculated by the proofing software, since no real measured colour data for the 50% value is stored in our system. These values are calculated very intelligently by the proofing software, but they are nevertheless only a clever calculation and not a simulation based on metrologically recorded reference. The same applies if, for example, a spot colour is printed semi-transparently over another spot colour or over a CMYK image. 

Greyscale

We treat greyscale values in PDF files as if they were on the black channel of the requested proof output colour space. A 50% grey is therefore output like a 0/0/0/50 in CMYK, this applies to images in Device-Gray as well as to all other greyscale data in PDF files. Even if you do not send us PDFs but pure TIFFs or JPEGs in greyscale, we would proceed in such a way that we treat them as the black channel of the requested output colour space. If we should output your TIFFs or JPEGs in grey profiles such as "Dot Gain 15%" or an "EPSON Gray Gamma 1.8" in these colour spaces, or for example output them in relative colorimetric mode in your requested output colour space, please write to us in the "Notes to your order" field that you will find during the order process.

proof papers

We proof on four certified paper types, two without optical brighteners for "classic" proofs and two proofing papers with optical brighteners for Fogra51/Fogra52 and Heaven42. All proof papers are certified by Fogra as proof substrates::

For the simulation of glossy print papers we use the Gravure proof Paper from EFI at 245 gsm. It feels very high-quality and is also perfect for customer presentations.
The 4245 is a coated universally usable semi-matt and wipe-resistant paper. This proofing paper specially developed for offset and gravure printing is compatible with paper types 1 and 2 of ISO 12647-2 and requires almost no paper simulation for these papers. The EFI 4245 is certified GRACoL/SWOP #3 and for the gravure area (S1 and S2) and for the offset printing area (PT3) the paper is also certified by FOGRA. 
 

    EFI Gravure proof Paper 4245 Semi-matt:

• Semi-matt coated paper
• Very large colour gamut
• One-sided printable
• Very good fading behaviour
• Very low proportion of optical brighteners
• Weight: 245 gsm
• Thickness: 260µ
• Opacity: 96%
• L*a*b paper white: 94.8 / 0.3 / -1.5

For those who need a proof for uncoated papers, we offer a proof on matt EFI 9120XF 120 gsm paper. This proofing paper contains practically no optical brighteners. The special colouring and the high L-value are very suitable for the simulation of matt prints. It is perfect for the simulation of uncoated papers as it is very similar to letterhead paper in feel and thickness.
 

    EFI proof Paper 9120XF Matt

• Large colour gamut
• Slightly bendable
• Low proportion of optical brighteners
• Weight: 120 gsm
• Thickness: 150μ
• Opacity: 95%
• Gloss: 6%
• L*a*b paper white: 96.7 / 0.2 / -2.4

The ECI (European Colour Initiative) states in its practical recommendation "Uncoated":
"A further special feature to note when proofing for printing on uncoated paper: The semi-matt proofing paper typically used for 'coated' printing results in poor visual proof-print agreement even with very good metrological results of media wedge evaluation. The use of uncoated proofing paper prepared for printing on proof printers achieves the best possible metrological agreement with the target values from the characterisation file and also provides the best possible visual agreement between proof and print."
http://www.eci.org/doku.php?id=de:colorstandards:offset
 

proof papers with optical brighteners (OBA)

EFI proof Paper 8245 OBA Semi-matt
For those who need a proof for glossy print papers with optical brighteners, we offer a proof on semi-matt EFI 8245 OBA semi-matt at 245 gsm paper. The EFI proof Paper 8245OBA Semi-matt was specially developed for proofing white and brightened coated print papers. The white point of this semi-matt paper is very close to the values of the FOGRA51 profile and thus enables proofing according to FOGRA51 with virtually no paper white simulation. It is also well suited for simulating printing conditions PC1 according to ISO 12647-2:2013.
 

• Weight: 245 g/m²
• Thickness: 245 µm
• Opacity: > 95 %
• Gloss: 22 %
• CIE L*a*b* (M0): 95.8 | 0.9 | -4.3
• CIE L*a*b* (M1): 96.0 | 1.1 | -5.6

EFI proof Paper 8175 OBA Matt
For those who need a proof for uncoated papers with optical brighteners, we offer a proof on matt EFI 7175 OBA matt at 175 gsm paper. The EFI proof Paper 8175OBA Matt was specially developed for proofing uncoated, heavily brightened print papers. It is very well suited for proofing according to Fogra52.
 

• Weight: 175 g/m²
• Thickness: 230 µm
• Opacity: 97 %
• Gloss: 5 %
• CIE L*a*b* (M0): 96.8 | 2.5 | -7.7
• CIE L*a*b* (M1): 97.0 | 3.0 | -10.8

The two uncoated papers are FSC-certified, the 8245OBA paper is PEFC certified.

For all questions about proofing, please feel free to call us at any time.  

Telephone: +49 (0) 7071-7952740 
Mon - Fri: 9.00 am - 6.00 pm

• Which profile is right for me?
• How do I create the PDF file?
• How quickly can you dispatch it?
• ...?

Outside our business hours you can always send us an email with your questions, which we will answer as soon as possible: info@proof.de
We have compiled the most important questions here for you: Frequently asked questions about
You will also find a lot of knowledge about proofing, digital proofing, online proofing and colour proofing directly here: proof.de

Matthias Betz and the proof.de team